


Contraindications

by Elleth



Series: Ladies Bingo 2017 [6]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Consent Issues, Dark, Dubious Ethics, Gen, Medical Experimentation, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 17:52:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14062227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: The expedition has concluded, and Tuuri, against expectation, is among her team. She will forgive the medics assigned to understanding her miraculous return, or so Siv keeps telling herself.





	Contraindications

**Author's Note:**

> For my Ladies Bingo card, for the Rape/Non-Con square. There is no sexual violence here, but there are non-consensual medical procedures being performed on Tuuri. I hope that counts. Either way, proceed with caution.

Consent is not an issue for the medics and scientists of the Nordic Council, at least not those in Rash Research. Siv Västerström knew that her future job had to involve questionable ethics before she applied, but it is an easy thought to put aside when the test subjects are unlucky lab mice, or sedated trolls in ice-cold tanks at the back wall of the lab.

It's not like any of those could sign affirmations of consent, and the ones that used to be human, 90 years ago, are no longer human enough to count. Only one of them, a scientist herself, back at the end the Old World, who realized what was in store for her, actually set up a testament of sorts, allowing whoever found her dead or alive to use her for science. She locked herself into her laboratory and stayed there until a team of Cleansers opened it in search of reusable materials. And use her Siv's team has done, tying the troll down onto a steel examination table and injecting her with sample upon sample of hoped-for cure and observing her for measurable effect, cell death, a decrease in the pathogen, anything. Nothing.

Siv isn't sure this woman - Susanne Oland, born January 28, 1971 and confirmed infected December 3, 2013 aka Year 0 - would sign that testament again, not after they brought her in alive in Year 78 and left her in a tank with her still human-enough hands pressed against the glass. Not that they would have given her a choice if they had found her without it. As it is, there is something about her that is a little too human for comfort, that shred of identity she left behind. Siv has had dreams of overdosing Susanne's anaesthetic to a fatal amount, and chalking it up to another misfortune like the ones that befall the project all the time, but they'd probably investigate her first of all. Siv keeps Susanne's testament framed in her office, after all. 

But she doesn't do it. Samples are invaluable, and if they ever discover a cure, the suffering will all be worth it. Susanne would want it. 

She has to believe that.

* 

Consent is not an issue for the medics and scientists of the Nordic Council, at least not those in Rash Research, but Siv Västerström never guessed that it might come to this. It is no longer an easy thought to push aside when her test subject is squirming on the steel table she's bent over, a few thin layers of protective suit between them.

Tuuri Hotakainen could have signed a consent form. She has human hands and is of sound mind, but as far as Siv is aware, she was never offered a choice. When the crew of the Silent World Expedition was picked up by the quarantine ship, the expectation was to find them one crew member short. They weren't. Their explanation went that Tuuri had died by committing suicide the moment she'd discovered her infection, they cremated her, and she'd been resurrected through magic. Onni confirmed it, even, paradoxically making it sound even less likely to the Swedish and Danish majority on the medical and military branches of the Council. Those of their Finnish, Norwegian and Icelandic colleagues who protested were overruled. Possible proof in the cremation site was ignored as irrelevant, hope - sometimes greed - overruling reason. Siv cast her vote and felt like biting into the table in frustration. 

On short notice, all the best researchers in range came out to the ship anchored off the shore of Iceland. 

What else could it be, the Danes and Swedes argue, except that Tuuri was, in some conventional shape or form - perhaps using the attempts at a vaccine that the team found in Odense - cured, and now wants to avoid the medical aftermath, shirking her duty to the Known World because she is afraid? Her team members, they say, are protective of her and therefore lying. Most of all their Captain and Tuuri's cousin, who has met any question either with sullen silence or hissing like a feral cat when Taru came to question him. She voted for the examination, even though she avoided Siv's eyes after. 

There is no doubt that Tuuri is non-immune. There is no doubt that Tuuri had been infected. There is no doubt that Tuuri is free of the Rash now. There is no doubt that Siv's heart aches for her even as she tightens the leather restraint on Tuuri's wrist and slides home the needle with the anaesthetic to keep her calm during the procedure. They have to do this, she reasons to herself. Tuuri bit one of the medics the first time they examined her against her will, tearing a hole into his hazmat suit, breaking his skin and putting him in quarantine. Siv can't say she feels particularly sorry for the man. Less sorry than for Tuuri, that's for sure, she thinks as she pulls the needle out and lays it aside.

It's the same sedative they use in the troll tanks, but adjusted in dosage. For a human, Siv amends quietly in her own mind as Tuuri's eyes lose focus, but somehow keep the expression of betrayal and fear. She strokes the hair back from Tuuri's forehead, like she does when Anna is sick, and makes herself look before she slides Tuuri's eyes closed and rolls her onto her side, adjusts her posture so her back is bent under the hospital gown. A lumbar puncture is a standard procedure, she tells herself. She won't even have to perform it, she tells herself. She's only there out of responsibility; she even keeps a photo of Tuuri in her luggage, from her expedition file. In the evenings, Torbjörn puts her arms around her when she takes it out and tries to keep her composure.

She doesn't know how long it will go on. It started innocently enough, letting Tuuri play with one of the ship's cats and observing the cat's perfectly ordinary reaction with confusion. Since then, they've already taken all they can from Tuuri - they've exposed her to UV light from a decontamination unit until Tuuri's pale skin reddened with a sunburn, immersed her in a tub of ice water to measure how hypothermia might affect her, made X-Rays to assess her bone condition and to find the deformities suggesting an infection, took skin and tissue samples from the site of the bite, though no scars remain to show that her shoulder was ever hurt. They take hair samples to test for any substances Tuuri may have been exposed to. Siv has lost count of how much blood they've drawn, how many stool and urine samples they've wanted, how many more invasive procedures they've done that Siv was not privy to because she protested the need for them - a gynaecological examination, truly? - although she clamped her lips shut about the bone marrow biopsy from Tuuri's hip, and the lumbar puncture now. 

After the procedure, Siv is allowed to place a bandage over the puncture site and wheel Tuuri back to her room, to unstrap her bruised wrists, and to sit with her in the barren isolation chamber. Siv sings softly to the girl until she stirs. Then she leaves to change out of her suit and watch from behind the observation window in the wall until Sigrun enters, glaring daggers, just as trapped as they all are, and holding a book that she'll press to the window for Tuuri to read, and to turn pages at her signal. They'll fall asleep in their respective chairs, foreheads on the window and human hands pressed together against the glass. 

They are on a ship. There isn't even escaping, other than this. Certainly no overdosing of anaesthetic that might be counted as a misfortune. It would be murder; Tuuri is human. That has not stopped the nightmares that merge Susanne and Tuuri, the lab tank and the ship's med bay, and Siv knows there will be tear tracks on Tuuri's cheeks the next time they come for her, and that she'll meet Siv's apologies with dull eyes and fear. Siv doesn't know what the next procedure will be, or whether there even is anything left to be done. There are so many tests because they have all failed to turn up abnormalities or even the barest hint of the infection, in itself abnormal. Almost, Siv wants to entertain the idea of magic after all, if it weren't so patently impossible and would condemn all their experiments as pointless torture. 

But Siv, too, voted for this. She holds herself responsible. Complicit. Because samples are invaluable, and if they ever discover a cure, Tuuri's suffering will all be worth it. If they do, Tuuri will forgive her. 

She has to believe that.


End file.
